Über 26 Millionen Stimmen wurden bei der Wahl zum neuen Coverstar der NHL Reihe abgegeben. Mit einem Vorsprung von 1% auf den zweitplatzierten (Pekka Rinne, Nashville Predators)wurde der Stürmer Claude Giroux von den Philadelphia Flyers zum Sieger gekürt.
Alle bekannten Modi und Features aus NHL 12 werden auch im Nachfolger verfügbar sein. Hinzu kommen folgende Neuerungen.
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•EA Sports Hockey IQ (AI): Makes CPU-controlled players and teammates smarter by reacting to everything on the ice, not just what they see in front of them. Skaters will be more easily able to prevent scoring opportunities. For goaltenders, Hockey IQ opens up for a lot of new different types of desperation saves as they are better able to identify "potential" scoring threats. As part of Hockey IQ, there are over five times as many strategy options in NHL 13 compared to previous titles of the current generation of the NHL series to replicate the real-life plays in the National Hockey League (NHL). According to Dean Richards, general manager of the NHL series, the development team spent more time on the AI development in NHL 13 than in the past three years combined.
•True Performance Skating: A new skating engine based on physics, makes the player skating more dynamic and realistic with over 1,000 new animations. The engine is divided into three parts: explosiveness, top-end speed, and momentum. Explosiveness refers to how quickly a player can accelerate when gliding, being in a stationary state or how far a player can skate quickly. Top-end speed means that the players can skate as quickly as in real-life in their top speeds. Momentum is part of the physics; for example, a player skating at top speed may not as easily turn around when carrying the puck as compared to when skating at normal speed or just gliding. Also, a player skating at top speed has his shooting and passing accuracies decreased. Momentum also means that players have a harder time recovering from mistakes. The new animations, combined with the Skill Stick features, allow for a lot of new plays and dekes that can be pulled off. True Performance Skating is taglined "Every Stride Matters".
•Team First Presentation aims to make the in-game experience more authentic than previously. Team-specific presentations for the NHL teams have been added, and it's also possible to manually customize the experience.
•GM Connected: Allows players to play in online Be a GM leagues with human-controlled teams. Players can keep track of what's happening in their league with a mobile app.
•NHL Moments Live allows players to relive great moments from the 2011–12 NHL season. In addition, new moments will be uploaded as the 2012–13 NHL season progresses.
•Hockey Ultimate Team: The design of HUT has been revamped, the reward system improved and a new playoff format for HUT has been added. New features for player-card collections have been added to make it easier to create a HUT team.
•EA Sports Hockey League remains in the game and things like club captains and improved matchmaking have been added.[/quote]
NHL 13 erscheint am 14. September 2012 für die Xbox360 und die Playstation 3.
